Eight Tools to Help You Build Your Online Community

One of the best ways to generate leads, maximize sales, spread brand awareness, and develop new opportunities is to offer your audience an online community to join and be part of. By making yourself available to a community online, you can find out in advance what types of things your audience needs to solve their problems. Online communities will literally put you at the forefront of knowledge within your community.

Let’s look at some options before I ask you a question.

Facebook Groups

This is a great entry level, free way to start an online community. Start your community on Facebook and then invite them to more excursive paid membership area of your website, for an upgraded next level of community.

AMember

This software enables you to set up members only communities, subscriptions, secure shopping carts, and more for your niche community. People like to feel special and protected from others and this is a safe way to start a private community.

AWeber

It might seem odd for this to be included in a community building list, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You need a way to communicate with a lot of people at once and AWeber is one of the best autoresponder services available for the money. You can send newsletters, email blasts and other information to members who sign up to get information.

vBulletin

This is forum software that offers either a self-hosted version or a cloud version, so that you can have a powerful and easy to run message board or forum for your audience to congregate and discuss issues in a members only setting.

WordPress

You can build a membership website using WordPress and some plugins like Paid Memberships Pro, or bulletin boards like bbPress, among others. While these are relatively simple, you may need some professional assistance ensuring security and the right server capacity.

Hoop.la

This is an all-in-one online solution for your online community. One really good thing about this is that it’s a hosted system that you own. However, it can be pricy for this full-featured online community software solution.

NationBuilder

This is an online community builder that is fully featured; you can charge a membership fee, email members, and more through one dashboard. This can act as your entire website without the need to integrate a lot of other software.

Building an online community is a great way to build relationships that will translate into referrals, true supporters and fans that will help you expand your business and keep your business running through the test of time.

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2 Comments

Lisa_Blue32 on TwitterJuly 10, 2015

Thanks Steve for pointing me in the right direction. I am slow about some things because of my accidents, but I get better every day. To have a community to fall back on if I get confused is a massive help. I am not sure what I am going to do, but the WordPress Blog is a beginning. Thank you Lisa